Gotta Have It! Figure Edition: Transformers: ROTF – Sideways

The Autobots and Decepticons have brought their civil war to our toy aisles with this scaled down, more simplistic, yet still detailed action figure line known as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – Legends Class.

Paint Job: Sideways is painted nicely on gunmetal gray plastic. Black, silver, red, and purple colors are used to show great detail of the robot and car. His eyes are very tiny, but they are painted red successfully with no bleeding onto other parts. Impressive! Most impressive! That’s gotta be one teeny, tiny brush! The Decepticon logo is painted perfectly on the car’s hood/robot’s chest.Durability: Sideways is made of a lightweight plastic. He has no hollow pieces. Some parts are screwed together and his “knee” joints are metal pins. The wheels are installed with metal pins, enabling the tires to spin freely. His shoulders are connected to the body also with metal pins and his arms move at the shoulder on ball joints. His thighs move on similar ball joints.Poseability: Sideways’s poseability is pretty much non-existent, but I think we can all agree that that is to be expected with Transformers. In robot form, he can stand up straight with his arms to his sides. If you extend his arms out in front of him, he becomes too top heavy and topples over. In robot form, he has good balance when stood up straight on flat surfaces.

Mr. Stark, your car is being quite…evil.

Transforming Sideways into (what is supposed to be) an Audi R8 is quite easy, and the instructions are printed on the back of the package. You should save the back just in case you ever have a brain fart and can’t get him going on. His limbs fold in and under, and the body snaps tightly at the rear of the car. The wheels roll effortlessly. The wheels on mine had small, leftover “tab” bumps, but they were easily filed down and now this smooth ride has a smooth ride.

Changing him back into a robot takes a little muscle and fingernail action, but once the rear of the car is separated, the rest of the transformation is a piece of cake.

What’s Awesome: I’m a child of the 80s. This is my first ever Transformer. Seriously! I watched the cartoon religiously like the rest of my generation, but I was one of the poor kids so my transforming robots of choice were Tonka’s Gobots! Hasbro now owns the rights to the Gobots, so we are likely to never see them again (I’m pretending that those stupidTransformers: Go-Bots happened in an alternate universe). What I like about these Legends Class figures, and ultimately why I chose this one, is the size! They are not big, clunky, and hard to transform. They blend in well with “real cars” (Hot Wheels). Isn’t that the point? The Autobots and Decepticons are hiding from us humans. What better way to hide, than these mini-versions?! Why hide though? If I were a kick-ass, huge effing robot, I wouldn’t hide! I would say, “Yo! I’m a kick-ass, huge effing robot! I’m taking over! I run this s-word!”

I like the price on these versions, too! At around five bucks a pop, they are not nearly as expensive as the original sized figures. Since, unfortunately, we are probably never to see the Gobots make a comeback, I’m glad that Hasbro made a line of their Transformers that are smaller, easier, and cheaper for those less fortunate. I’m going to go ahead and dub the Legends Class, the modern day Gobot! Thank you for that much, Hasbro!

Hiding from humans? You're doing it wrong!

Hiding from humans? You must have learned from Waldo!

What Sucks: With as much fun with this Transformer as I’ve had, there are some minor down sides. I wish these things could have been made out of die-cast metal, since they are sized like a Hot Wheels car. Die-cast metal would be pretty sweet! Maybe I’m being unfair? Maybe that’s just my inner longing for the return of Gobots speaking? Hasbro should cash in on the current nostalgia craze and re-release those puppies!

I also don’t like that there is not a whole lot of variety with these figures. I would like to see more than just the Revenge of the Fallen done with these Legends Class figures. I would like to see some Generation One Transformers done like this!

Overall: 4.5 out of 5. I give Sideways four and a half thumbs up. If he were die-cast metal, he would get a five. This version of Sideways is a lot of fun! The whole series is neat! Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – Legends Class: Decepticon Sideways. Gotta have it? You’re damn right, you do!

The smaller Transformers are either hit or miss with me and this one is a bit of a miss in robot form but the car mode is pretty decent. This is the guy that got sliced in half by Sideswipe early in the movie right?

I hate the Gobots like I hate commercial rap, racism, bad sequals, people who turn left from the right lane, people who put tomatoes on my burgers when I clearly stated that I don’t want them, snorks, and laundry list of other things.